There is a geography of the human spirit, common to all peoples.

There are ways in, journeys to the center of life, through time; through air, matter, dream and thought. The ways are not always mapped or charted, but sometimes being lost, if there is such a thing, is the sweetest place to be. And always, in this search, a person might find that she is already there, at the center of the world. It may be a broken world, but it is glorious nonetheless.

There is a place where the human enters dream and myth, and becomes a part of it, or maybe it is the other way around when the story grows from the body and spirit of humankind. In any case, we are a story, each of us, a bundle of stories, some as false as phantom islands but believed in nevertheless. Some might be true.

It has seemed so strange to me that the larger culture, with its own absence of spirit and lack of attachment for the land, respects these very things about Indian traditions, without adopting those respected ways themselves.

Some people see scars, and it is wounding they remember. To me they are proof of the fact that there is healing.

Telling about our lives is important for those who come after as, for those who will see our experience as part of their own historical struggle.

There is a geography of the human spirit, common to all peoples.